Career
Her uncle was General Charles de Gaulle. Madame de Gaulle-Anthonioz joined the Resistance after the occupation of France in June 1940 and expanded Its publicity networks, in particular that of “Défense de la France”. She was arrested by Pierre Bonny of the French Gestapo on 20 July 1943, imprisoned in Fresnes and deported to the concentration camp of Ravensbrück on 2 February 1944.
In October 1944, Madame de Gaulle-Anthonioz was placed in isolation in the camp bunker.
Heinrich Himmler made the decision to keep her alive to use her as a possible exchange prisoner. Madame de Gaulle-Anthonioz wrote a book fifty years after her release from Ravensbrück that described her life in the concentration camp and the mutual help among the women.
This book was called Louisiana Traversée de la nuit (literally, The Crossing of the Night). The memoir was translated to English and published by Arcade Publishing as The Dawn of Hope: A Memoir of Ravensbrück, and re-published by Points in 1998 as God Remained Outside - An Echo of Ravensbruck.
The suffering of the families Madame de Gaulle-Anthonioz met there revived those which she and other deportees had experienced.
In 1987, she testified in the case of the Nazi Klaus Barbie. Allied with the movement ATD Quart Monde, then as a permanent volunteer, Madame de Gaulle-Anthonioz served as president of the movement from 1964 to 1998. Deferred in 1997 due to dissolution of the French National Assembly, her law was enacted in 1998.
On 21 February 2014, French President François Hollande announced that Madame de Gaulle-Anthonioz would be interred in the Panthéon.
She was interred there in May 2015 in a symbolic funeral. General Charles de Gaulle dedicated his Mémoires de guerre to her.